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Second class citizen and UPS

joelw135

joelw135

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 15, 2008
553
279
New Jersey, USA
Don't get me wrong so let me start off by saying I love my iMac. As a new Mac user I am generally very pleased with my purchase. But what gets me very angry is the way companies don't give the same function to Apple applications and utilities as they do Windows applications and utilities. For one example I will use my latest introduction to inferior software which is the APC UPS Shutdown utility for OSX.

My Windows version of the software was able to tell me how many minutes were left on the battery as well as time to shutdown. It also gave me testing routines so I can see if everything is functioning properly. The OSX version is no better than the Mac version located in the power settings. No length of battery time is available and no testing available.

I know many of you will call this post silly, but after last Fridays power outage that crashed my system. The battery backup went from 100% to 10% as soon as the UPS went on battery then shut off without a proper shutdown. The replace battery light never lit and I lost my work. So to me this is justification for feeling this way.

This was only one incidence of a program on a Mac that does not function as on Windows do to inferior programming.

Sorry for the RANT, but I needed to get this off my chest.
 
What is wrong with using OS X's battery timer (gives you in hours and minutes how long you have left)?
 
Kilamite said:
Am I missing something here then...? Has the OP hooked a battery up to his iMac or something?
Click to expand...

Yes. UPS stands for "Uninterruptible Power Supply". They are used so that power outages do not mess up desktop computers.

The OP's argument is that his UPS did not work with OSX, and thus that Windows is superior to OSX with some applications.

To the OP: I think you should be blaming a faulty UPS rather than OSX.
 
The OP connected a UPS to his iMac so he could shut down cleanly in the event of a power outage. A power outage occurred, and, due to what the OP perceives as a lack of proper support from the manufacturer of the UPS, the UPS did not allow for a clean shut down.

Capt Underpants said:
The OP's argument is that his UPS did not work with OSX, and thus that Windows is superior to OSX with some applications.

To the OP: I think you should be blaming a faulty UPS rather than OSX.
Click to expand...

The OP's argument is not that Windows is better, just that it gets better support from third party hardware manufacturers; he is blaming the UPS (to be fair, he's blaming the UPS manufacturer).
 
Kilamite said:
Am I missing something here then...? Has the OP hooked a battery up to his iMac or something?
Click to expand...

This could be the reason why you guys are treated as second-class citizens :p

Perhaps in any case it has taught the OP the importance of battery monitoring on-unit regardless of the PC utility.

I have a recent rant on this subject actually, and I blame the electricity company, the laws of chance and possibly God. I have a huge-ass multimodule UPS array at home, and some work needed to be done on the cells. It was quicker to power down the array to do this, and since I've had like 2 power cuts this year to date, I said - yeah, if it'll just take half an hour, flip the array to AC power.

You can probably guess what happened about halfway in to that process :mad: 3 hours of it, too.
 
JonMaker said:
The OP connected a UPS to his iMac so he could shut down cleanly in the event of a power outage. A power outage occurred, and, due to what the OP perceives as a lack of proper support from the manufacturer of the UPS, the UPS did not allow for a clean shut down.



The OP's argument is not that Windows is better, just that it gets better support from third party hardware manufacturers; he is blaming the UPS (to be fair, he's blaming the UPS manufacturer).
Click to expand...

Thank you I thought I was speaking another language. As far as testing the battery there is no way in OSX just in Windows. That is why I blame the APC programmers not my great iMac.
 
It pays to do your research. Many UPS systems that connect via USB support the UPS HID profile. This enables the OS the communicate with the UPS without additional manufacture driver or application.

Last I was researching UPS I dismissed APC units for two reasons: 1) non-standard USB cabling, 2) no mention of HID support. That's not to say their equipment isn't good, just that I prefer open standards to proprietary nonsense.
 
TheFuel said:
It pays to do your research. Many UPS systems that connect via USB support the UPS HID profile. This enables the OS the communicate with the UPS without additional manufacture driver or application.

Last I was researching UPS I dismissed APC units for two reasons: 1) non-standard USB cabling, 2) no mention of HID support. That's not to say their equipment isn't good, just that I prefer open standards to proprietary nonsense.
Click to expand...

I have tried three different UPS units from different companies and the APC is the only USB unit that works with OSX. It shows the percentage of the battery and an estimate of minutes, but no test function which is very important.
 
May require some times to set up but have you tried NUT?

http://eu1.networkupstools.org/

It seems to be available through macports:

http://www.macports.org/

or fink:

http://www.finkproject.org/index.php?phpLang=en

(eventually here for some information on how to compile it on OS X.

http://web.suffieldacademy.org/ils/netadmin/docs/software/nut/

http://www.llondel.org/ups.shtml )

I must agree that often the software provided by many hardware producers really lacks important function in the mac version (if there is one).

I think it is important to test the UPS from time to time, eventually by simulating a power loss (of course with a dummy load, not computer).
 
misterredman said:
May require some times to set up but have you tried NUT?

http://eu1.networkupstools.org/

It seems to be available through macports:

http://www.macports.org/

or fink:

http://www.finkproject.org/index.php?phpLang=en

(eventually here for some information on how to compile it on OS X.

http://web.suffieldacademy.org/ils/netadmin/docs/software/nut/

http://www.llondel.org/ups.shtml )

I must agree that often the software provided by many hardware producers really lacks important function in the mac version (if there is one).

I think it is important to test the UPS from time to time, eventually by simulating a power loss (of course with a dummy load, not computer).
Click to expand...

Looks like a great program, but I just don't have the nohow to instal it.
 
misterredman said:
What about this one? They have precompiled packages for OS X. Not sure exactly which functions they support though but they seems to be made for APC:

http://www.apcupsd.org/
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, but I looked at the packages and I couldn't even figure out how to install it. I then saw the install file clicked on it and it opened the terminal window and said completed. I can not get into the program and when I rebooted it stayed on the light blue screen for ten minutes and finally booted. I tried rebooting again same problem so I repaired permissions and rebooted and things are better. But program not installed. Like I said I am new to Mac and Unix and it is above my ability now. Unless there is straight forward directions it will have to wait.
 
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